IN NEW JERSEY

IN NEW JERSEY; PARAMUS BLUE LAWS CRIMP OFFICE LEASING

By ANTHONY DePALMA

Published: November 4, 1984

THIRTY years ago, much of the Borough

of Paramus in Bergen County, about 10

miles from the George Washington Bridge, was covered with acres of celery plants and marshes.

Then, in 1957, the Garden State Plaza, one of the first suburban shopping malls in the country, was built at the intersections of Routes 4 and 17 and Paramus was on the way to becoming one of the region's largest retail centers. A few small office buildings rose, providing suburban rents and easy access to a wide range of stores and restaurants.

In the last decade, traffic worsened and Paramus decided it had enough shopping malls. At the same time, it began considering proposals to put up more commercial office space, providing tax ratables without seriously aggravating existing traffic problems.

Officials tried to regulate the effects of the tremendous growth on the borough by insisting that at least one day a week, Paramus be allowed to enjoy some of its former peace and quiet. In 1957, a law was passed banning all ''worldly employment'' on Sundays, forcing all the new stores and malls built in the celery fields to close for the day.

Town officials did not realize then the law would one day also prevent office employees and their computers, which often run all week long, from working on the weekends - and that, in turn, would hurt the office developments that would be built there.

Now Paramus is one of the state's most active suburban office markets, with nearly two million square feet of office space standing and more than a million more either planned or under construction, and developers fear what the Sunday closing law may do to the new developments' chances of success.

Office developers are drawn to the community of more than 26,000 residents by its location, with Routes 4 and 17 and the Garden State Parkway slicing through it and Route 80 just minutes away. And its concentration of retail operations has helped stabilize the tax rate - at $3.09 per $100 of assessed valuation among the lowest in Bergen County.

''We don't have anyone who goes out and seeks these developments,'' said Mayor Joseph P. Cipolla. ''They come to us.''

The biggest builder in Paramus has been the Mack Company of Rochelle Park, just over the borough's southern boundary. The company has already put up four large buildings with a million square feet of office space, roughly half of Paramus's entire inventory, and Mack officials say three buildings providing a total of 560,000 square feet of additional space will go up within the next three years.

''The ability to be near highways, restaurants, banks and shopping is very important to us,'' said William L. Mack, a partner in the family-owned business, which has been involved in New York-New Jersey real-estate development for 88 years. ''When we decided to build in Paramus, we were looking at what made buildings in New York successful. We felt we should give people some of the same amenities in suburban locations.''

Nine years ago, Mack began construction on its first building in Paramus - a five- story, 345,000-square-foot atrium structure that for years was the largest speculative office building in Bergen County. Mack Centre II, as it is known, is on 20 acres of what used to be swampy meadowlands next to the Paramus Park Mall off Route 17. Four years later work began on the five-story Mack Centre III, which has 250,000 square feet of office space. It is actually two separate structures joined by five-story dome-covered atrium.

The newest building, just being completed, is Mack Centre IV, off Paramus Road in the southern section of the borough. The five- story, 260,000-square-foot building is not far from company headquarters and Mack Centre I, just inside the Rochelle Park border. Rents are expected to be around $22 a square foot.

Despite increasing competition from a number of other new office buildings just opening up, the Mack Company has received approvals from two more buildings near the Route 17 site, and another building off Paramus Road to complement Mack Centre IV. Work is expected to begin on all three buildings within the next six months.

MR. MACK said that although the Bergen County market generally was already overbuilt, new buildings continued to be rented, although at a slower pace than heretofore. He said he expected that it would take 18 months to lease the 260,000 square feet in the newly completed Mack Centre IV. By comparison, he said, most of Mack Centre II's 345,000 square feet was taken as soon as the building was open. Three-quarters of the tenants in the Mack buildings are New Jersey companies.

What does worry Mr. Mack about the oversupply in Bergen County is that it may cause prospective tenants to overlook Paramus in favor of other locations. The traffic is one consideration. Another is the local ordinance banning commercial work on Sundays, which was challenged in 1959 and 1961, resulting in an exemption for real-estate offices.

Mr. Mack said the law made leasing space in his buildings more difficult. ''It affected our operations, property values and ability to rent,'' he said. ''There are plenty of buildings around. If operating on Sundays is a necessity, a company won't compromise just to be here.''

He said his company challenged the ordinance in Superior Court and in September, a judge declared the law invalid because it was pre-empted by a state law disallowing the ban on ''worldly employment'' in the local ordinance.

The Paramus Borough Council has filed an appeal, but until it is adjudicated, computers may be operated on Sundays. Mayor Cipolla said he was confident that the decision would uphold the Sunday-closing law. He contends that such a law still makes sense in 1984.

''What I'm worried about is letting them get their foot in the door,'' the Mayor said. ''We have a tremendous amount of retail stores here. If we let somebody run computers on Sunday, before you know it everyone will want to stay open.''

Local real-estate brokers say that the Sunday work ban, if reintroduced, would make it harder to attract tenants to Paramus. ''I've brought TRW and other corporate tenants to look at space in Paramus,'' said Edwin A. Tarr, vice president and manager of the Hackensack office of Coldwell Banker Commercial Real Estate Services, ''but the Sunday law blew them right out.''